Elections and Comics

I'm as glad to be through the election (and the donation request texts and commericals) as much as anybody, but it seemed a good excuse to look back at comic book intersection with elections. I'm talking fictional ones here, not comics on candidates or "get out the vote" PSAs.

Most of the these are going to relate to presidential elections, likely because there are more dramatic stakes. What better place to begin than Prez #1 (DC, 1973) which starts with a young man named Prez winning the highest office in the land and getting into adventures once he's in office. It was written by Joe Simon and drawn by Jerry Grandenetti and is predicated on the notion of a Constitutional amendment lowering the age for eligibility for office (which may have been inspired by the 1968 film Wild in the Streets). The upshot is a teenager gets elected, and who better than an earnest and idealistic kid from Middle America whose mother even named him “Prez” ‘cause she thought he’d be President one day?

Over at Marvel, Howard the Duck ran for president in 1976 on the All-Night Party ticket. Here's the Special Bullpen Note announcing it :

The storyline accompanying this fan club campaign was by Gerber and Colan. Ultimately, a scandal over a (fake) photo of Howard in the bathtub with his girl Beverly, tanked his candidacy.

These were just the first two comic book candidates. Steve Rogers would run in the alternate universe of What If? #26 (April 1981) by Barr and Trimpe/Esposito. Lex Luthor runs for president and wins beginning in a oneshot called Superman: Lex 2000 #1 (2001) by Loeb and Harris. Most recently, Loki ran in a 2016 4-issue miniseries Vote Loki written by Christopher Hastings.

In the realm of elections other than presidential, Suicide Squad (1987 series) had a nearly year-long arc written by Ostrander and Yale leading up to issue 22, published on election day 1988. In this story, Cray, a Senator up for re-election and his crony blackmail Reagan and Amanda Waller with revealing the existence of Task Force X, unless they use the Suicide Squad to take out his opponent!

Ultimately, Cray gets assassinated himself by Deadshot on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and the Suicide Squad's existence is made public. How's that for an election day surprise?

Nocturnals Darkly

Nocturnals: Darkly Part One which crowdfunded early this year has been going out to backers. I got mine last week. This is a new Nocturnals story that follows the events of Sinister Path. It will ultimately be in three parts, presumably each crowdfunded. Here's an interview with Brereton on Comics Beat about the series.

For those of you that didn't get in on the campaign, Bud's Art Books has pre-orders up for the hardcover which is supposed to be in stock (appropriately enough) on Halloween.

No digital edition available, as yet. Maybe they'll be one when it's all done?

Regicide

 Regicide is a dark fantasy series by writer Patrick Kindlon and artist Ludovic Lalliat published by Image. The ad copy often seems to compare it to "Dracula meets Berserk," and possibly that will become more relevant as the series goes on, but from the 3 issues available now, I definitely see the Berserk part, but I would otherwise liken to things like the film Viy or the novel Between Two Fires.

Mihas, a hulking peasant farmer in Wallachia, Romania, is ordered by the elders of his village to accompany the mysterious, metal-masked Doru on mission to kill the king. Their mission is complicated by the various demons that they will encounter along the way, hiding among humanity. 

Mihas reminds me a bit of Hellboy or the Goon; he's a working stiff sort of guy that relies on his own strength to get by. Lalliat's scratchy artwork is perfect for the gritty violence is brutal and the monstrous grotesqueness of the demons. 

Despite this content, the story isn't grim, though. Doru has an acerbic tongue and is constantly irritated by his bumpkinish assistant. There are also humorous story elements like their visit to Orasul Supunere ("City of Submission"), a form word-rejecting religious settlement, turned something like a modern BDSM club, complete with leather outfits for the townsfolk.

If you enjoy dark fantasy with a bit of humor and heroes battling a series of strange demons, then you will dig this.

Horror Hosts

I've been meaning to check out this book. The whole multi-media phenomenon of horror hosts is interesting to me. Those horror-themed employers of terrible puns, making fun of (or perhaps having fun with) whatever B-movie or vintage horror film their program was showing that week. They likely reached their greatest exposure in hosting B-movies in late night or Saturday afternoons or various local (or later cable) TV stations, and even more recently on the internet. The internet tells me the first of these was Vampira in Los Angeles from 1954-55, but the first I encountered was Zacherley (on a cheap VHS tape). Well, perhaps the first I saw was Commander USA, but he doesn't really fit the standard mold.

At least one of these TV horror hosts, Elvira, made it into comics, but comics had its own horror host history, predating Vampira. The Black Witch (MLJ) first appeared in 1942 and the Man in Black (Harvey) in 1945. Probably the most iconic of comics' horror hosts are the three "GhouLunatics" from EC Comics. starting with the Crypt-Keeper in 1950, who ultimately broke out into TV and film.

The horror host tradition was perhaps suppressed by the arrival of the comics code but came roaring back in the Bronze Age. DC's Cain, Abel, and the Three Witches are only the most famous of their many hosts. I believe Marvel only had one hosted horror title, Tower of Shadows, but it had two hosts: Digger and Gravely P. Headstone. Warren Magazine's Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie hosts of the books bearing their name got an earlier start (1964 and 1966, respectively) thanks to not being bound by the code.

So where did the horror host get started? Radio. The witch Old Nancy hosted The Witch's Tale (1931-1938). Probably a big influence on their groaner, ghoulish pun style was Raymond, host of the popular Inner Sanctum Mysteries from 1941-1952.

De Camp's Pusadian Cycle

 

Lately, I've been furthering my exploration of L. Sprague de Camp's fantasy work, with the Novarian novels, but I've also dipped into some of his earlier Pusadian series. It has sort of a similar relationship to the Howard's Hyborian Age stories that de Camp's Krishna novels have to Burroughsian Sword & Planet. That is, it's an attempt to do the same thing more "realistically" or at least in a concerted and methodological sort of way. For instance, de Camp uses current (to the 1950s) understanding of geologic change to inform his design of his landforms, and more rigorously derives his imagined countries and their names from Greek myth (mostly).

Whether any of that is necessary, every reader will have to decide for themselves, but I appreciate the thought behind it, at least. I also appreciate the less "standard fantasy" sort of setting. It's mostly a Bronze Age level of technology, with iron being the bane of magic.

I discovered that a number of the older Pusadian stories published in the pulps are available on the Internet Archive:

"The Eye of Tandyla" (1951)

"The Owl and the Ape" (1951)

"The Stronger Spell" (1953)

"The Hungry Hercynian" (1953)

"Ka the Appalling" (1958)

Character Design References in Batman: The Caped Crusader Season 2

Batman: The Caped Crusader, the Prime Video animated series, contains a number of plot elements, and characters drawn from the long history of Batman comics, and also a number of homages or references to films. One of these that drew my attention were the classic film references in the designs of the characters. 

Here are ones I noted or was able to find reference to on the internet:

Eddie "Ridder" Nygma reminded a lot of people, including myself, of the sort of criminal tough guys played by James Cagney, but he really most resembles Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death (1947).

Mr. Zero (the original name for Mr. Freeze) resembles Peter Lorre's character in Mad Love (1935).

The Joker is a clear homage to Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs (1928).

Rita's flying suit resembles the outfit of Commado Cody from Radar Men from the Moon (1952).

Thorn, the alter ego of Rose Canton, evokes the femme fatale performances of Rita Hayworth.

The Return of the Marvel Masterworks

 

Marvel cancelled the Marvel Masterworks line of reprints with Defenders vol. 10 in 2025 due to declining sales. The line had always had a fitful history, though. In ran from 1987-1993, then went dormant. It was revived in 1997 with pop art style covers by designed by Comicraft, but this version ended in 2002. In 2003, a new trade dress was arrived at (differentiating Atlas era, Golden Age, and regular Marvel) and this version carried through until the end.

Well, Clover Press who I know from their American Comic Strip Library collections have picked up the line, and they are relaunching with a crowdfunding campaign going on now.

These volumes will complete Tomb of Dracula, continue the Simonson run on Thor and the Claremont run on X-men, and start a Super-Villain Team-Up series. In addition to bringing back the two previous cover variants, they are adding a cool Clover Press cover.